Your startup's technical leader, without hiring too early.
Get senior technical ownership at the stage you need it. Someone who takes responsibility for the architecture, the roadmap, the developers and the risk, so you can get on with the business.
Most fractional CTOs advise. We can also inspect, build and fix the software directly.
These are the sentences we hear most often on a first call. If one of them is yours, you are in the right place.
-
"I have an idea, but I do not know how to build it."
-
"I made a prototype with AI, but I do not know what is safe to launch."
-
"I have an agency, but I cannot tell whether their advice is right."
-
"I need to hire developers but cannot assess them."
-
"I have received several development quotes and do not know which one to trust."
-
"The app works, but nobody owns security or infrastructure."
-
"I need a technical co-founder, but I am not ready for a full-time hire."
-
"Investors are asking questions about our technology."
This is practical ownership, not occasional executive advice. It looks like this.
Product and technical planning
Turning what you want the business to do into a plan that can actually be built.
Architecture
Stack choices, system design and build-versus-buy decisions made properly the first time.
Technical roadmap
What gets built when, sequenced around your funding, launch dates and customers.
Estimation and delivery planning
Realistic timelines, and honest updates when reality disagrees with them.
Developer and agency oversight
Managing the people building your product, and telling you whether the work is good.
Technical hiring and interviews
Job specs, technical interviews and a straight assessment of who to hire.
Vendor and quote review
Reading the quotes and contracts you have been sent, and explaining what they really commit you to.
Security and technical risk
Finding what could hurt the business, and fixing it before it does.
Infrastructure and deployment
Hosting, deploy pipelines, monitoring and backups that hold up under real traffic.
Investor technical support
Answering the technical questions in a raise, and being in the room when they are asked.
Due diligence
Reviewing codebases, teams and technical claims before you buy, invest or commit.
Hands-on development
Dropping into the code to unblock your team or ship the hard piece ourselves.
Ongoing accountability
One person who remains responsible for the technical direction, week to week.
Strategic enough to make the hard technical decisions. Hands-on enough to implement them.
The person you meet on the first call is the person doing the work. There is no rotating consultancy team, no junior developer presented as senior leadership, and no salesperson who hands you over to someone else once you sign.
You get direct access to the person making the technical decisions: one person who can move between business strategy, architecture and code without anything getting lost in translation.
- No rotating consultancy team
- No junior developers presented as senior leadership
- No salesperson handing the work to someone else
- Direct access to the person making the technical decisions
- One person across business strategy, architecture and code
Intro call
A free conversation about where you are and what you need. No pitch.
CTO Health Check
The fixed-price review below, so you know exactly where you stand before committing to anything ongoing.
Ongoing retainer
A set number of hours per week or month. Scale up for a launch, down when things are steady. No lock-in.
A full-time CTO costs upwards of $200k a year, and most early-stage startups are not ready for that hire. This is the same seniority, at the stage and scale you actually need it.
CTO Health Check
Find out where your product really stands before you spend more money.
Who it is for
Founders who need clarity before committing to ongoing support: you have developers, an agency, a set of quotes or a part-built product, and you need an independent read on whether any of it is right.
What we review
- Your product and technical position
- Architecture and codebase
- Your developers or agency, and how delivery is going
- Quotes, estimates and delivery risk
- Security and infrastructure
- Hiring needs and technical roadmap
- Expected costs and priorities
What you get
- A written technical roadmap with priorities and likely costs
- A straight answer on whether your current setup is working
- A working session to walk through it together
- Something concrete to show investors about technical leadership
What we need from you
Read access to the code if it exists, a look at the running product, any quotes or contracts you want reviewed, and a conversation about where the business is heading.
Timeframe
Typically one week from getting access to walking you through the report.
Fixed price, quoted before we start.
The advice is independent. If the right answer is to stay with your current agency, or to not build the thing at all, that is what the report will say. There is no obligation to continue with us, and the report is yours either way.
Book a CTO Health CheckJohn Croucher is a hands-on technology leader and software engineer with more than 20 years of experience building, operating and rescuing production systems. That experience has shipped an ecommerce platform (Koi), award-winning interactive journalism tools for News Corp, festival ticketing systems handling offline scanning at scale, and payroll and warehouse logistics software for 200+ staff.
When your fractional CTO says something will work in production, it is because they have run things in production. Based in Adelaide, working remotely with founders across Australia.
Need a CTO in your corner?
Tell us about your startup. The intro call is free, and you will leave it with useful advice either way.